Fortna: Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace?

Tags: papers, un and global governance lecture 7

Fortna, Virginia Page. “Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace after Civil War.” International Studies Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2004): 269–92.

• Often repeated tropes that peacekeeping should only be done when “there is a peace to keep” from Brahimi report
  • ignores that UN is often more likely to succeed in lower conflict situations
  • situations where there is a clear victory is less likely to see UN peacekeepers, but more likely to see regional peacekeepers
• finds that, since the cold war, peacekeeping does work
• peace enforcement has been found to result in unstable peace where nations later reenter war, possibly liddism (Curran and Hunt: Stabilization at the Expense of Peacekeeping in UN Operations)
• finds that peace will generally be easier to maintain after wars with a decisive victor, after long wars, and in countries of higher development